


Blood of the Covenant

by inuyashamunkey



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [10]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allura is racist, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Galra Keith (Voltron), Hurt, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt Lance (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, I feel like her racism wasn't addressed in the show, Lance (Voltron) is a Good Friend, Protective Lance (Voltron), Protective Team, Racism, Racist Language, So i addressed it, and i had fun doing it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 03:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17399453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inuyashamunkey/pseuds/inuyashamunkey
Summary: Keith is badly injured on a mission with Lance and, upon being encapsulated inside of a Healing Pod, the team finds out that he's galra and that healing pods don't work on galra.Was this really just written as a salt-fic to address Allura's blatant racism? Yes. Also Lance is Best Friend





	Blood of the Covenant

**Author's Note:**

> Allura's racism gets put down like the dog it is
> 
> Edit 1/25/18: This has been edited for an application

 Lance's hands were a bright, startling red, dark and flaking around his wrists. They were disgustingly moist and sticky, catching on Keith's dark uniform as he held him under the arms, dragging him. He gritted his teeth, grunting. 

"Work with me, here, Keith," he breathed. Keith, of course, didn't reply. He'd been stubbornly unconscious for more than half of their trip, limp and dead weight. Lance hissed between his teeth as he took another step, the oozing gash on his leg sending electric jolts of pain through his travel and battle-worn body.

A long, bloody tail followed them like a grim trail of breadcrumbs, the sound of blood slicking sand like a clock ticking in Lance's ear. The blood would be a surefire way for any of their enemies to find them quickly if any of them really wanted to, and he knew he wouldn't be able to fight them off—not if he wanted both himself and Keith to live through it.

The speakers in his helmet buzzed uselessly in his ears, his visor cracked in a dance of webs. He wore it for comfort more than anything. He held Keith's close as it didn't look too bad, but with the way Keith was, he wasn't optimistic that the piece of tech had fared any better than its owner. Still, he held onto it.

Lance panted, squinting at the garishly bright sun beamed down on them.

When they had first landed, Lance had found the warmth of the planet comforting, like being on the beach back home, but now it was complete and utter hell, searing his flesh and depriving his body of much-needed liquid.

The good thing was that, if he remembered correctly, Blue wasn't too far away from where they were now. He hoped so, at least, he felt like they'd been walking for an eternity—or he had been. Keith, regrettably, wasn't exactly a receptive party at the moment. They had found Red earlier in their trip, busted to shit and utterly unresponsive even to Keith's hopeful touch. Lance had then seriously considered just camping out there until the team found them.

 _If_ they found them. It wasn't as if their suits had trackers.

Thankfully, Keith had made his decision easy, dropping like a war-torn sack of potatoes at his lion's paw. He wouldn't have made it if they stayed, if Lance didn't at least try to get him back to Blue, the only place the team would know where to find them. Hell, even with that his odds still didn't look great.

He glanced down at Keith's face, dirty and slack, his chest barely raising for stuttered air. He grimaced. Not many things looked great in this light.

He walked tirelessly, steadfastly ignoring every warning bell his body set off. He didn't stop until they reached his lion, his princess.

The well of exhaustion turned into a well of relief and spilled over in his chest as he managed to rough a hand over the cold, metallic paw. His forehead knocked against his girl for a brief second, a soft smile pulling at his lips.

He managed to pull Keith closer to him, into the shade of his lion, before his legs gave out underneath him, trembling as he fell to the ground.

His hand, though it was shaky, gripped onto Keith's tightly as his eyes clenched shut in pain. He wouldn't be able to get back up, he knew. His adrenaline kick had worn off and he was amazed that he had managed as long as he had with the horrid throb in his leg, thrumming like a violent jackhammer in his skin.

His sight was blurry as he tilted his head up to look at Blue, dutifully shielding them. Now all they had to do was wait. He glanced at Keith.

He never was any good at waitin.

~

He had no idea how long he'd lied there, trying to grasp at the straws of his reality and keep himself steady until help came. But help did come, and then he felt almost ashamed that he'd ever doubted that it would.

His help came with a far-off boom in the form of one glorious beast of a man, bi-colored and half robot to boot. Shiro kneeled by his side, concern flooding his face as he spoke in unnecessarily hushed tones. "Lance? Are you with me?"

"Shiro," Lance replied softly, his voice tasted metallic on his tongue, rusty and misused.

There was a crease between Shiro's boxy eyebrows as his eyes flicker between Lance and Keith behind him. Their hands were still intertwined and it was through that small connection that Lance knew the dark-haired man was still alive.

"I'm going to take Keith to my lion first and then I'll come back for you, alright?" Shiro asked with a small look of guilt. Lance nodded with a soft sigh. He didn't mind waiting a couple more minutes for his own personal rescue; he wasn't in any rush, if he were to be honest. The warmth of the planet didn't feel so suffocating, now. "I promise I'll come back."

Lance nodded his head again with a small smile. _I know,_ he wanted to say,  _you don't know how_   _to leave people behind,_   _you never did_. Shiro lifted Keith into his arms, removing his hand from Lance's. "I'll only be a moment."

He watched Shiro's back as he ran with a too-limp Keith dangling in his arms, running their teammate to safety. Something about I made his chest warm. He really had the best teammates a guy could ask for.

Lance might've dozed a moment, he didn't really know, but the next thing he did know, he was the one being lifted into sturdy arms. "Are you still with me, Lance?"

"Mhm," He was terribly parched, his lips cracked and bloody.

Shiro was running, much like he had with Keith, and while the air whipping around them burned into his injuries, it was a refreshing change. "How badly injured are you?"

Lance took a second to swallow before responding, "Just m' leg, mostly."

Shiro cut him a short, skeptical look. "Also thirsty," Lance remedied.

"There should be a couple of canteens in my lion," Shiro told him. The words were music to Lance's ears and he let his eyes slip closed as Shiro ran them to the lion that would finally take them home.

Kith was nestled in the corner of the cockpit, taking up residence in the spare cot and Shiro gave him an apologetic look as he set him up against the pilot's seat. It wasn't terribly comfortable, but Keith was in a much worse way than he was, so he didn't have many complaints.

Shio disappeared, briefly, but came back with four silver canteens that looked like absolute heaven. Lance clutched all four of them in his lap once they were offered, swiftly opening the closest one and taking out half of the liquid inside in one go. Shiro looked concerned, but he let him be.

"I'm taking off, now. I've informed Coran of Keith's condition," Shiro informed him after tending to Keith more thoroughly. Now the man looked less like death and more like the bubonic plague.

"How long?" Lance asked in one of the brief moments he pulled the life-saving canteen away from his lips. Shiro sat down and shifted to get comfortable in the pilot's seat before replying.

"A day." Pause. "At least."

Shiro's lips twisted in displeasure as he said the damning words and Lance had a flare of anxiety at the thought of Keith going that long without proper treatment but he knew they would have to take what they could get and hope for the best.

~

Their trip took a day and a half and Lance was happy to say that he felt much better than he had before. He and Shiro had cleaned up his leg and any other injury he sustained and, thankfully, none of them had begun to fester; his dehydration and utter exhaustion was the one thing that had really pulled him down.

Keith had seen much improvement since their departure, Shiro utilizing a quick care guide he'd been given by Coran in order to keep the man stable until he could get into a pod and, oddly, something settled in Lance once he began to see the color return to Keith's dauntingly pale cheeks.

Lance wasn't strong enough to be the one to carry Keith out of the lion, but Shiro had no qualms about doing it. Lance had a slight, almost unnoticeable limp as they shuffled out of the lion and the first thing that greeted them were the anxious faces of their team waiting around in the doorway.

Coran was the first to step forward. "How is he?"

Shiro gave him a small smile and a lingering tenseness left the room in a quick wave. "He's a lot better. Worse for wear, but he should be fine after some time in the healing pod."

"Follow me," Coran beckoned, the others parting from the doorway to let them pass.

Lance stood behind Coran as he operated the control panel, lifting one of the pods with a steamy puff. Shiro gently set Keith inside, resting the man's arm over his chest. He stepped away and gave Coran a quick thumbs up.

Coran raised some bars and quirked some dials on the blue-lit touchpad before, finally, the pod closed on Keith and the freezing began.

Lance felt relieved for all of two seconds before he saw the drop in Coran's face. Shiro seemed to notice it next, glancing at them uncertainly. "Coran?"

Coran frowned and started to speak but before his words could reach them, the lights overhead began flashing a panicked red.

"Coran?" Lance's voice was high, his muscles taut. "What does that mean?"

"This can't be..." Coran murmured.

"Coran!" Shiro's voice was tight with panic. Lance saw him leaning up against the pod's window, his eyes frantic and the realization reached him before Shiro's words did. Keith's lungs weren't frozen; the pod wasn't oxidized. "He can't breathe."

Something in Coran's face set n an instant. "Disengaging."

Shiro was quick to catch Keith's limp body as he fell out of the pod. Shiro immediately began to check him over. When Keith's chest raised in another breath, Shiro looked relieved. He held Keith closer and looked up at Coran. "What happened?"

Coran's lips contorted, a look of dark uncertainty gracing his face as he stared down at Keith. Behind him, the doors opened and Allura rushed in with Pidge and Hunk filing in after her. "What on Earth happened?"

"Come here, princess, I think you should see this," Coran said, stepping back and away from the pad. Lance peered over at it.

"What?" What happened? I don't—" he let out a huff of frustration, wishing he had accepted Coran's offer of learning how to operate the damn thing when the opportunity was given to him.

Allura stepped up with a gentle frown as Pidge and Hunk went to assist Shiro with Keith. She looked down and her face seemed to freeze. Lance pushed forward. 'What?"

"Coran, Keith needs medical attention." Shiro's voice was hard, laced with concern and hint of desperation. Lance nodded in agreement, looking towards the princess, but gone was all concern from her face, eerily replaced by a stone wall of ferocity. It was a familiar expression—achingly familiar.

Coran stared at the side of her head for a moment before returning his gaze to Shiro. "Take him to the med bay—"

"No."

Lance's head snapped towards Allura with a faint crack. "What?"

Allura met his gaze evenly, something awfully close to betrayal lurking in the pink-blue waters of her eyes. "I won't have his kind treated on my ship." She raised her chin as if to punctuate her words.

"What are you talking about?" Lance asked in disbelief. He threw an arm out towards Keith's prone form. "This is Keith. _Keeeeeeith_. He's our  _friend_  and he needs  _help."_

Disgust was the only thing she saw fit to reply with. "My decision is final," she spat.

"Excuse me?" Lance looked at Shiro; The man had a storm in his eyes.

"I don't know was possessed the red lion to accept him as her own, but nothing good will come of him being here," Allura said.

"What are you talking about?" Lance asked, taking a step away from the woman he so fancied.

"Princess..." Coran laid a gentle hand on her arm. "Do not let yourself become blinded by your hatred."

They exchanged emotionally-charged stare-down and Lance was done. He threw his arms up in a fit of frustration. "What the hell?! Someone explain to me what's happening because, if you hadn't noticed, Keith could literally be  _dying!"_

"Why didn't the pod work, Coran?" Shiro asked. "What's going on?" This was more of an agitated growl.

Coran looked down. "The pods aren't properly equipped to heal those with galra blood."

Something in Lance's mind lagged as his neck twisted to look between Shiro and Coran. His jaw worked for a moment., "But...what? I don't...Keith's human," He finished with certainty. As he looked around the room though, he became less certain. "...Right?"

"Not entirely, my boy," Coran said, shaking his head

"Okay...okay. Keith's part galra or whatever,  _cool,_ great, okay, doesn't make him any less _dying,"_ he said, gesturing roughly towards Keith for what felt like the thousandth time. Was everyone just ignoring him?

Coran seemed to reach an understanding within himself, willing to put aside hat issues he had with this...peculiar topic. Allura, however, had more to say. "After what his kind," she spat the word like it burned her tongue, "did to my people, he's not welcome to receive treatment of any kind on my ship any longer. If you have any problems with it, you're welcome to go with him."

"Go with him  _where?"_  Lance asked, straightening as if he could stand tall enough to cover Keith from view.

"Coran.  _Keith,"_  Shiro interrupted in a harsh breath.

With one last, almost mournful glance towards his princess, Coran was on the move, heels clicking against the marble floors as he strode towards the small huddle of bodies. "Get him to the infirmary."

Shiro nodded jerkily, picking Keith up with care. "Hunk, pidge, come with us.'

Hunk and Pidge, who had stood with Shiro but hung around a bit, were in action, briskly following after them. Allura's fist clenched and she made a move to follow them but Lance stepped in her way, unmoving with his arms tensely crossed over his chest. "What do you think you're doing?" she asked.

"After what you said about my buddy?" Lance barked out a humorless laugh. "You're not going to follow them. I won't let you."

"Let me?" Allura repeated indignantly. "This is  _my_  ship, you don't  _let me_  do anything. Move.'

Lance shook his head, looking down at her. "No."

"Lance, you don't understand—"

"No." Lance's voice echoed in the now-empty room, loud and cold. "I don't, and never have, understood racism. I thought it was just a flaw of Earth but I guess intergalactic species can be just as cruel." He shook his head, lowering it in disappointment.

Allura took a brazen step forward. "His kind slaughtered—"

"His kind," Lance repeated, "has done horrible things that Keith has given up his life to stop."

"You can't chance blood," Allura said as if it were a bold declaration. In a way, it was.

Lance thought back to his life on Earth. He thought back to the bigotry that had been a constant roadblock in his life, consistently trying to bring him down time and time again. As a Hispanic man, racist people weren't unfamiliar to him and just as he had never allowed them to stop his siblings from being the best he knew they could be, there was no way in hell he was going to let it bring Keith down; no matter who it came from.

"You can't,' he said. "That's why it doesn't matter. Did he slaughter your people Allura? Did he come down from the skies and destroy your kingdom?"

"No, but—"

"Then shut up," Lance interrupted, a deceptive light note in his voice covering the underlying bitterness that begged to rear its ugly head.

"What?" Allura recoiled in insult.

"I've noticed Alteans don't care as much about skin color as humans do, but you're just as bad as the rest of them and it's so pointless." He rubbed a frustrated palm down the side of his face. "I don't think you understand how many of my people get slaughtered on Earth because of the  _exact same thing,"_  Lance told her, a curl of satisfaction weaving through his chest as he took on a look like she'd been physically slapped.

Lance trudged on. "So what if he's galra? He's had plenty of opportunities to try and hurt any of us in the past couple of years and he hasn't even tried to. Hell, he could've killed me and Shiro ten times over by now if he had wanted to when we were in the Garrison. Keith is Keith and he's my friend and if you think you can just get rid of him then you're wrong. I  _will_  leave with him and you're delusional if you think Shiro and Hunk won't follow."

Allura had shifted to look down at her feet with a frown. "I can't forgive what they did. What they continue to do."

"I'm not asking you to., Allura. I'm asking you to stop trying to blame Keith for it." It really wasn't a difficult concept, but people seemed to have such a hard time with it.

She bit her lip and clenched a hand in the skirt of her dress. She said nothing.

Lance pursed his lips, a fierce protectiveness bubbling up inside of him for his friend. Never, not in a million years, not even if he hated him, would he stand for keith to be treated like this.

To be treated like Lance had been every day in the Garrison. To be alienated and ostracized by the people you swore to serve.

"Tell Coran when you're ready to apologize. Otherwise, don't come near us." Lance spun on his heel, leftover frustration fueling his stride as he promptly left the room.

~

"Thankfully, his injuries weren't as extensive as I had feared," Coran said as he stared down at the electronic touchpad he held in his hand.

Everyone in the room breathed a collective sigh of relief. "So he'll be okay without the pod?" Lance asked hopefully.

Coran gave him a small, sad smile. "Yes, my boy, he'll make a full recovery. I'll be equipping the pods to handle his unique genetics as well."

Did Lance ever mention how grateful he was for Coran? Man, was he over the moon about that dude.

Keith was still unconscious and pale against the stark white sheets of the bed, and Lance didn't know if he knew just how lucky he was that Coran had been there today. Lance felt a new kind of sympathy for him, a camaraderie of sorts.

_Third bonding moment and you aren't even awake to see it, you dick. I was so cool, too._

Pidge shifted awkwardly. "So, uh...what happened with Allura?"

Lance clamped his hands on her forearms. Coran frowned. "You have to understand that the galra have taken everything from her. She is...not justified in her anger, but this realization is, understandably, quite a lot."

"That doesn't give her the right to treat Keith badly." The words were out of his mouth before Lance even realized it. His eyes were set on the bed in front of him, but he saw the grateful look Shiro sent him.

"You're right, my boy. I apologize for any unbecoming behavior she might have exhibited." Coran's head inclined in a slight bow.

"It isn't your fault," Lance muttered.  _You're not the one who needs to apologize._

Coran glanced at him but seemed to make a decision and let it be. "He should awaken before long. I'll go check on the princess." Coran exited, the door sliding shut behind him with a hiss.

Once he was gone, Shiro bumped his shoulder against Lance's. Lance looked up and was met with Shiro's warm smile. "Thank you for defending him."

Lance shrugged. "'S'nothing."

"No it meant something.  _Means_ something. I appreciate it, really. I know Keith will, too."

Something stuttered in his chest. Fluttery, like panic. "Don't tell Keith," Lance said in a rush of air.

Shiro gave him an odd look. 'Why not?"

Lance's neck bowed and his feet shuffled in discomfort. "S'just...he doesn't...need... _that_. It sucks to know people don't like you or look at you differently because of your parents or skin or something, you know? 'Specially after all of..." Lance waved his hand in the air,  _"this."_

Shiro stared at him for a second longer, almost in wonder, before he smiled again, warmer. "Okay."

**Author's Note:**

>  **I'm taking requests for Bad Things Happen Bingo:** one-trigger-lullaby.tumblr.com


End file.
